CHICKENS,HUGH AND TESCO TOO

[jesssands]

If price is really an issue as to which chicken you pick up in the supermarket, why don't you take something out of your trolley that you don't really need for the extra £1! Maybe a packet of biscuits or crisps that is no good for you and only there to make your arse spread! Called balancing your budget!

[jesssands]

[raisedbedted]

If price is really an issue as to which chicken you pick up in the supermarket, why don't you take something out of your trolley that you don't really need for the extra £1! Maybe a packet of biscuits or crisps that is no good for you and only there to make your arse spread! Called balancing your budget!

Contentious, but would have to agree  ;D ;D

[Paulines7]

I have sent a letter to Tesco. I will never use their shop again if they let the likes of HFW dictate how I should be buying my chicken. I like bland, I like cheap, I don't give a  ~@)* about how my meat gets there.
But most of all I do not want to be told by a pratish TV chef who everybody thinks the sun shines out of his @rse.

Ace, I am really disappointed with you.  What you are saying then is that you don't give a  ~@)* about how these chickens are bred, how they are packed together so closely in a shed without windows, where they cannot perch, cannot walk around freely and spend all day sitting in their own poo.  Would you like to live like that?  All HFW was asking Tesco to do was to have their farmers follow the code of practice laid down by the RSPCA.

[kt.]

I have hens and they are reared for eggs not meat; and I have the room for them to have quite a bit of space on my allotment.  If all these cheaper chickens were to be replaced with free range then eggs and chicken they would still probably be more expensive because they would require more land to provide the current quantity of food - or there would be less produce in the same space therefore keeping prices up. A recent TV program said the armed forces use 500,000 eggs and several thousand chickens per month in one camp in Afghanistan.  Now just who is going to foot the increased bill if the Armed forces ate free range eggs and chicken. 

Money talks - and as long as it does I won't pay the price difference for free-range chicken.  Each to their own and those who have spare cash to buy the free range produce all well and good.  At the moment the majority seem to rule and like it or loathe it..... that majority at this moment in time is not free range. 

if god didnt want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat ;D ;D ;D

I like it.  ;D ;D.

[thifasmom]

nope it wasn't this one the one i saw definitely had the word disgusting in it :).

Britain's really disgusting foods
presented by Alex Riley

I remember it because our lot were struck by the sheer awfulness of the ad campaign they developed as part of it, and went around singing "Mr Riley's pies" for weeks afterwards :-[

Sally

yes thats the one :). i think it was also shown a few times or maybe it had more than one episode, but i only watched it once on i player and never tuned into it when i saw it on the telly so can't say if it was the same episode being repeated or if there were new episodes.

[Joolieeee]

Not a great fan of Hugh but i did like this programme Taking on the likes of Tesco is no mean feat and if the outcome is making the short life of chickens better then i have to say to him well done and to Tesco and others the public don't always think that cheap at any price is the best.

Now i wonder who is going to come on to the telly next to fight the corner of farmers who are not getting a fair price for the milk there cows produce ?

Aren't we just about to have the next installment - either Hugh or Jamie is going to highlight the issues affecting pig farmers, the way this industry runs, and how we are importing much more pork - as our restrictions are stricter in the UK, our lovely supermarkets import cheaper, unfairly treated stuff from overseas.  Thursday night I think

Poor little pigs  :(

Joolieeee

[jesssands]

Money talks - and as long as it does I won't pay the price difference for free-range chicken. 

TRUE, But don't you agree that that it should be freedom of choice. How can you make an informed decision at the supermarket if the lables don't inform you. I personally would not wish to go back to eating the 30% more fat/2 for a £5 kind of food now that I have been converted by taste. But probably most people would pay the extra 90p for the rspca standards bird wouldn't they???

[jesssands]

Thursday night I think

Poor little pigs  :(

Joolieeee

YES THURSDAY 9PM CH4

[Drive-by abuser]

Made me laugh, expected someone on a low budget to spend her cash to help with the struggle, then in the next scene, he has his website begging bowl out to help him with his 84k bill from Tescos!!!!!!

and like the blinkered fools you are you pledge your money to bail him out

practice what you preach HUGH, you've got the cash, if you expect mothers on low incomes to commit why don't you!!!!!

[Barnowl]

Free range chicken tends to be about 50% more expensive, but even so is under £2 a 1lb for whole birds (around a third of the cost of lamb chops), surely not a huge price to pay?

Just as I look at the ingredients list in packaged food, I try to find out out what the birds have been fed on - feed largely determines the flavour though not the texture. I'm most concerned about the antibiotics that are added to their feed as a matter of course by some producers (I wouldn't call them farmers), but this isn't a disclosure requirement.  Since Organic standards on antibiotic use are full of loopholes anyway, I go for well fed (cereal/veg only) free range.

PS I really want bans on pork imports from countries with lower standards than our own. From a welfare point of view, our UK standards are pretty low anyway bearing in mind that pigs are the most intelligent animal that we eat.

From a consumer point of view,  well looked after free range pork tastes like a different meat to the flabby, flavourless supermarket cuts.

PPS How many people have heard of yolk colourants? These are added to laying hens (including free range) whose diet is such that otherwise their eggs' yolks would be too pale to market - although yolk colour has no bearing on the healthiness of an egg.

[Carol]

Well I enjoyed Hughs prog.last night with his stance re: chickens.  He managed to convert me in his last programme about chickens and now I buy from the local butcher.  I get more meat on the chicken breasts, more tasty and instead of feeding only 2 people, I actually get 3 meals from them. 

[kt.]

don't you agree that that it should be freedom of choice.

But probably most people would pay the extra 90p for the rspca standards bird wouldn't they???

Yip.  Everybody has their freedom of choice.  Not everybody can afford the extra 90p though.

[raisedbedted]

don't you agree that that it should be freedom of choice.

But probably most people would pay the extra 90p for the rspca standards bird wouldn't they???

Yip.  Everybody has their freedom of choice.  Not everybody can afford the extra 90p though.

More like people want as much as they can get and decisions based upon an animals welfare does not come in to that.  Freedom of choice is a good thing as long as it is based upon a full understanding of the relevant facts.

[pippy]

I was put off low grade chicken by Marina Lewinska's book "Two Caravans" - if anyone wants a good read it is both entertaining and enlightening on the chicken production issues and on immigrant workers, strawberry picking etc.  HFW simply carried the message a bit broader.

One of the most important aspects for me is that I only buy WHOLE chickens, and never breasts or diced meat as this has often come from abroad, is VERY low grade and can be labelled "British" simply by being packaged here.  Same applies with other meats in supermarkets.

I don't mind paying the extra £1 for a nice chicken which I will use across 3 meals - as someone has already said, you would pay more for lamb chops.  We don't have a huge budget for food and have kept to this principle even when we have been "scrimping and saving".  I generally budget £5 for the sunday joint/chops/meat treat anyway.  Rest of the week is largely vegetarian, occasional fish or leftovers from the meat.

Jamie is about to blow the gaffe on pork production on Thursday - particularly sow stalls which are banned in the UK now (fortunately).  Personally I have found a good local farm shop which produces and traces all its own beef, pork and lamb produce.  It isn't organic but it is is 10 times better than much of what is in the shops !  I'd rather pay an extra couple of quid for meat and eat less of it knowing it is produced honestly!  Same principle with anything really.

[hellohelenhere]

I've never wanted to eat battery chicken since I was a kid, and saw what it entailed. My mum used to keep bantams. At one point she got some ex-battery chickens, 'rescue' chickens I suppose. The state they were in was absolutely vile; half their feathers missing, too weak to stand or walk. One died quite promptly, but the transformation of the other two into healthy chickens was incredible to see, from the dreadful state they had been in.
To me, there's NO reason or excuse to treat animals that way, and I'm by no means a hardenened animal-rights campaigner - I'm not even vegetarian. I was, for years after that, but then came to the conclusion that it was better to actively support ethical farming than to simply avoid the issue.

I cringe even now when my chicken-aholic husband orders a chicken dish, if we're out or getting a takeaway, but I can't impose my will on him. Myself though, I never buy chicken except free-range. I also realised lately that I ought to be more careful about what pork products I buy.
We live pretty much hand-to-mouth, and I don't think FR chicken is wildly expensive, I think it's more that the factory stuff is shockingly cheap. If I couldn't afford to buy FR chicken, I'd buy it half as often, or do without. I don't get it when people say they 'don't care, as long as it's cheap'. Is that because we don't have to see the misery that goes on? Do people still 'not care' even if they see it for themselves?

[caroline7758]

I was put off low grade chicken by Marina Lewinska's book "Two Caravans" - if anyone wants a good read it is both entertaining and enlightening on the chicken production issues and on immigrant workers, strawberry picking etc. 

Yep, just finished reading it!if you weren't convinced before, you will be after reading this!

[pippy]

Glad you enjoyed it Caroline.  Have you read her other book "A short history of Tractors in Ukranian" too?  Made me burst out laughing lots!

[thifasmom]

what i think also needs to be mentioned is the effect of intensively farmed meat on human health.

just as we are aware of the use of pesticides and excessive use of man made chemicals in the growing of crops in relation to the nutrient value of the harvested crop. so the public needs to be educated on the high use of antibiotics and other additives used in intensively farmed animals. i cannot see how this could ever be to the public health's best interest.

like i said before i no longer miss eating meat, but if i was still eating meat i would like a lot of you buy the best that i could afford and simply eat less of it, IE quality rather than quantity should be the aim.

the world as i see it, has had enough quantity much to human health's detriment :-\.

[pippy]

Yes. and not just human health - we are affecting animals, eco systems, the environment and all.  I think one of the problems is that people just feel that whatever they do it is just such a complex web of problems that it can't help!

I think, getting back to the issue of chickens, the trouble is as helloghelen said, you can buy your home roast chicken free range, but people are eating ready meals, takeaways, sandwiches, school meals and restaurant meals.  The thin end of the wedge is often that we have to become pariahs to control all that and a lot of people simply won't bother to start as they can see this. 

However, if a campaign like HFW's or Jamies gets enough momentun people WILL do it because it then becomes social death not to!  Daft I know, but true - look at free range eggs - they took years to overtake battery ones.  After a certain point, the big manufacturers take it on board, eg Helmans maionnaise.

[Mrs Ava]

Living in our part of Essex we have several farm shops, local butchers and also an abbatoire where we can buy direct in their own butchers, so I can be a little picky about the meat we have - however, we are on a tight budget at the moment and live in our overdraft, so I can appreciate why mums who only have X amount of pounds to spend  pick up the cheaper meat options.  I also only buy whole chooks and joint them, then boil the bones for the stock - a chook has to do a good 3+ meals, but I am not complaining.  I do think it is easy to say we should all eat the best food there is, but I really do believe there are people out there that need to feed their families, and they really can't afford the more expensive free range options.